By way of background concerning some conventional systems, computing devices have traditionally executed applications and data services locally to the device. In such case, as data is accessed, processed, stored, cached, etc., the data may travel on the device over local buses, interfaces and other data pathways, however, the user of the device has not had to worry about interference or exposure of user data unless the device itself is lost, stolen or otherwise compromised.
The evolution of network storage farms capable of storing terabytes of data (with potential for petabytes, exabytes, etc. of data in the future) has created an opportunity to mimic applications that have historically operated against local data, but instead operating against data stored in the cloud, with separation of the primary device and the external storage. Cloud storage of application or system (or any) data allow many devices to store their data without the need for separate dedicated storage for each device.
Yet, with the evolution of on-line and cloud services, applications and services are increasingly being moved to third party network providers who perform some or all of a given service on behalf of device(s). In such case, the user of the device(s) may become concerned with who can access, or potentially worse, interfere with, the user's data while it is uploaded to a service, while it is stored or processed by the service or while it is retrieved from the service. In short, when the data of a user's device leaves the domain of physical possession and enters a network environment physically away from the user, a concern over sloppy or malicious handling of or interference with the data by third parties arises. Accordingly, it is desirable to increase the trust, security and privacy for cloud services and the handling of data in connection with cloud services. Similar concerns can arise over the storage of data even within an enterprise, for instance, where the data leaves one region of control (e.g., first division) where the data is generated and enters another (e.g., second division) for storage.
However, as alluded to above, the problem remains that no cloud service or network storage provider has been able to effectively alleviate the problems of and demands for security, privacy and integrity of the data while stored in the cloud. In short, users require elevated trust that their data remains secure and private when physical control over the storage vehicle is surrendered, and this hurdle has significantly prevented enterprises and consumers from adopting the backup of important data via third party network services and solutions.
The above-described deficiencies of today's devices and data services provided to devices are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.